OCCUPIED JERUSALEM (AFP) — The UN Middle East envoy warned Tuesday that the humanitarian situation in the Gaza Strip had become “dangerous” since Israel launched a massive operation to win the release of an abducted soldier.

BAGHDAD (Reuters) — Gunmen pulled the deputy electricity minister from his car in a busy Baghdad street on Tuesday, briefly kidnapping him and 19 bodyguards in an attack that underlined the vulnerability of Iraq’s new government.

BAGHDAD — No sooner had US authorities filed rape and murder charges against ex-soldier Steven D. Green than an account of the incident appeared on an Islamist website in the name of an insurgent group, the Mujahedeen Army. It promised “harsh punishment” for the alleged crime.